Good ride Vander for your first effort; especially with no aero bars! After riding the course a few times you'll learn where you need to push and where you need to hold back a little. The key is not to go out too hard. deliberately hold back in the first few kms - get up to full tilt going down blood hill and then freewheel till you hit the bottom. From here is where you put the foot down. on th eway back, hold back a little going into blood hill so as you can hit the hill hard rather than grovel your way up (we all grovel up it, it just by doing this you'll grovel a couple of kph faster).

It was a beatiful day for TT'ing yesterday and for a change there was no headwind on the outward leg.

Chookman wrote:Good ride Vander for your first effort; especially with no aero bars! After riding the course a few times you'll learn where you need to push and where you need to hold back a little. The key is not to go out too hard. deliberately hold back in the first few kms - get up to full tilt going down blood hill and then freewheel till you hit the bottom. From here is where you put the foot down. on th eway back, hold back a little going into blood hill so as you can hit the hill hard rather than grovel your way up (we all grovel up it, it just by doing this you'll grovel a couple of kph faster).

It was a beatiful day for TT'ing yesterday and for a change there was no headwind on the outward leg.

CheersChris

Chris Cook? If you are, you came in just before I went out, amazing time! I made a big mistake on the hill before blood hill I smashed it up that and it left me in a lot of trouble up blood hill, by the time I got to blood hill I was pretty spent. Any other tips? You have to know some tricks to get to 33min.

Chookman wrote:Good ride Vander for your first effort; especially with no aero bars! After riding the course a few times you'll learn where you need to push and where you need to hold back a little. The key is not to go out too hard. deliberately hold back in the first few kms - get up to full tilt going down blood hill and then freewheel till you hit the bottom. From here is where you put the foot down. on th eway back, hold back a little going into blood hill so as you can hit the hill hard rather than grovel your way up (we all grovel up it, it just by doing this you'll grovel a couple of kph faster).

It was a beatiful day for TT'ing yesterday and for a change there was no headwind on the outward leg.

CheersChris

Chris Cook? If you are, you came in just before I went out, amazing time! I made a big mistake on the hill before blood hill I smashed it up that and it left me in a lot of trouble up blood hill, by the time I got to blood hill I was pretty spent. Any other tips? You have to know some tricks to get to 33min.

Hi Vander, I can't really add too much to the great advice given by others such as Alex etc. What I said about holding back till the first of the hills on the outward leg and before blood hill on the return will potentially (IMO) save a decent chunk of time and make for a more enjoyable ride (well at least not quite as painful). Regarding training: If your focus is TT's you need to make sessions such as 2 x 20 mins @FTP your "bread and butter". Sprints, V02, anaerobic efforts are all way down the list of importance; if not irrelevant! Have an easy recovery day between hard sessions. Another thing that works for me is warming up at an easy/ moderate intensity on the road rather than trainer or rollers. It's too easy to overheat on the trainer; especially in summer. I used to do some hard efforts on the trainer before TT's and came to the realisation it was doing me more harm than good. You want to warm the legs up without letting your core temp get too high. If warm, ride around with your jersey open, splash some water on your self - basically do all you can to keep cool. Good luck!

Did 38:18 this morning, 41 secs better than last time I went up (April last year). Pretty happy with that considering I haven't ridden very much in the last 2 weeks because of the rain. Would be interesting to see what I could do on a full TT rig (or at least some aero wheels). I'm fairly certain I went out too hard from the start, especially after reading the comments above. I just can't help myself when I'm feeling fresh and pumped!

I also did it this morning. Managed 39:37 2min 4 sec better then last time. My legs were a lot more smashed this time after a huge ride yesterday and it took me a long time to get my HR up. It hurt oh so much. I also think I need a bike fit for the TT bars as my hip was extremely sore by about 20min in and by the time I got to the end I had to get off the bike it was so bad, combination of not the best hit and really tight ITB I think. Happy with my time. I really hammered out and up blood hill and home from there but on the way back I took it too easy (partly due to pain) and I think lost a fair bit of time there.

Averaged 280WNormalised 291W

Was aiming for 300W but ill take it after how my legs felt this morning. Hr Avg 177 which I can do better then if fresh.All in all pretty happy (apart from the sore hip). Good training as at Canberra I will have to do a TT in the afternoon after a stage.

vander wrote:I also did it this morning. Managed 39:37 2min 4 sec better then last time

That's an impressive time/improvement, especially considering the ride you did yesterday, there's no way I'd be able to follow up a big ride with a good TT time. I always feel smashed the day after a big ride.

vander wrote:I also did it this morning. Managed 39:37 2min 4 sec better then last time

That's an impressive time/improvement, especially considering the ride you did yesterday, there's no way I'd be able to follow up a big ride with a good TT time. I always feel smashed the day after a big ride.

Thanks man. Your time is pretty awesome hope I can get to that sort of time.This morning when I got up I did think do I bother. It is what I am training for to be able to back up so gotta push through it. I am kind of getting used to feeling smashed. It does get better but. 100km ride used to ruin me for a few days now I can do what I did today. If you train it you get better at it works with everything.

philip wrote: I'm fairly certain I went out too hard from the start, especially after reading the comments above. I just can't help myself when I'm feeling fresh and pumped!

Even though you feel like you are holding back at the start of a TT when fresh, you are probably putting out more power than you can sustain over the distance. If you have a power meter or can get a loan of one, try a short TT in training and see how much your power spikes over the first few minutes. I don't race with one but I know in training TT's i often look down at the watts after I get up to speed and find my power is 30% or more above my FTP and it feels easy. You have to ignore this feeling and back off even though it feels easy. Keep going and it will all catch up within 5 minutes and from then on, you never really recover. Normally you trust what your body is telling you and this true at most times except the for first few minutes of a TT!

I just realised how cool strava is for comparing times for this using the comparison function! Chookman I can see that obviously I did go out too hard. For the first 2 minutes we have exactly the same time, obviously you are heaps faster than me so I was going faster than I should have. It looks like that probably took it's toll on me on the way out because by the time I got to the turnaround you were about 3:17 faster than me. At the finish you were 4:48 ahead, so I didn't lose as much time coming back. I was at the top of blood hill when you crossed the line. Seriously impressed with your times!

I didnt know about that feature until you mentioned it. It is pretty cool a pitty you can only compare to the KOM being so far off Chris it doesnt really help much, but cool feature. I think it is just harder to put time in to people on the way back as it is mostly down hill whereas the uphill it is easier to put time into people I would assume.

Phillip, another factor to consider in that equation is the type of bike used. The data you have posted above would fit with where a full TT bike with TT wheels would be faster than a road bike with clip-ons and where there is little difference is the parts of the circuit where the flash equipment makes little or no benefit.

Yeah I realise that mike, I was looking at the comparison for the differences between out/back times and also the start where we were the same, I think this can be useful when comparing pacing, as opposed to just comparing the actual raw times.

mikesbytes wrote:Phillip, another factor to consider in that equation is the type of bike used. The data you have posted above would fit with where a full TT bike with TT wheels would be faster than a road bike with clip-ons and where there is little difference is the parts of the circuit where the flash equipment makes little or no benefit.

philip wrote:I just realised how cool strava is for comparing times for this using the comparison function! Chookman I can see that obviously I did go out too hard. For the first 2 minutes we have exactly the same time, obviously you are heaps faster than me so I was going faster than I should have. It looks like that probably took it's toll on me on the way out because by the time I got to the turnaround you were about 3:17 faster than me. At the finish you were 4:48 ahead, so I didn't lose as much time coming back. I was at the top of blood hill when you crossed the line. Seriously impressed with your times!

Yeh, strava is good, although every time you get a KOM everyone lines up to kick your arse!

The cool thing about it is you can look how different riders have paced their effort. if you click on 'performance' you can see cadence, HR, speed and power (if a PM was used) for every part of the ride. You can learn a lot from studying this info.

mikesbytes wrote:Hi Chookman, I'm interested in getting some TT wheels this year. what are your experiences?

Hi Mike,

I've always used a disc with various front wheels. Currently using a Corima disc and trispoke. There's so much to choose from these days so i guess it depends on your budget. Disc and deep dish front is claimed to be the fastest combination; however i believe a 100/80 deep section combination is pretty close performance wise in most conditions.

Planet X (UK) have some nice deep section wheels at really good prices. A little heavier than Zipp; however they are about 1/3 the price! I haven't used their wheels however I've read lots of good reports. I ride a planet X bike and currently have another on order and I've always had great service!

I was wondering abut dics versus deep dish... if you had say an 808 (or similar on the front). But for the rear had the choice of disc, 1080, 808 would there really be much difference?.Beauty of 808 on the rear is I could road race with it too and put a powertap in easily.Never looked at those Planet X wheels before...prices are fantastic.

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